The Marauders: Year Four
by thejilyship
Summary: The Marauders, Lily and co. are back for their fourth year at Hogwarts, and they've got more to deal with than ever before. The minister is letting Death Eaters walk, the DADA professor seems a bit to angry and previous attacks are coming back around to hit families a second time. The house relations will be tested this year, will our favorite Gryffindors make it out unscathed?
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Alright, I was going to wait to post this, but I've been getting a lot of pm's and asks regarding the state of this series, so here you are. Chapter one of year four! You should know that you needn't have read the previous three for this one to make sense, and since I think this year is the best so far (in terms of my own skill and such) I recommend reading it whether you've read any of my previous stories or not.**

**Alright, without further adieu, enjoy...**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: An Unusually Common Occurrence <strong>

The Marauder's fourth year at Hogwarts began much like every other year. Their parents took them to the station, they boarded the train (rode in the last compartment as always), they caught up with everyone that they hadn't seen over the summer, and some that they had. They bought half of the snacks off the food trolley, they eat all of that food and complained about how full they were until they swore off eating ever again, then played Exploding Snap, went to find the trolley again and bought the remaining half of the snacks, until eventually, the train pulled into the station.

Sirius had grown over the summer and was now towering over the other three boys by five to eight centimeters. Peter was used to being the shortest, but James was not taking Sirius's newfound height very well.

"I'm sure you'll grow eventually." Sirius said, exaggerating the amount that he had to angle his head to look down at his best mate. "Just give it some time, no?"

Of course, that was the only encouraging thing Sirius had to say on the matter. He was quite enjoying being taller than the lads.

"Wish you lot could see the view from up here. It's an entirely different perspective."

Remus was somewhere in the middle, quite enjoying the fact that he wasn't taller than James. He didn't think he would fair too well at the receiving end of the bespectacled boy's glares.

This summer had been good to the boys. Not just in respects to Sirius's height, but they had also just had a splendid time together. All four of the Marauders had spent most of the summer at James' house, playing and attending Quidditch games, researching more on how to become animagi, planning elaborate pranks for the new school year and avoiding their summer homework.

They were starting the school year off on a good foot. It was going to be a good year for them, they could all feel it.

oOoOo

Lily and her friend's fourth year at Hogwarts began much like every other year. Their parents dropped them off at the station, they found each other on the platform then moved to a large compartment that they shared with other fourth year girls from other houses. They finished up their summer homework, gossiped about what fourteen-year-old girls gossip about, snacked on sweets from the trolley, greeted everyone who came into their compartment with much more enthusiasm than was necessary (mostly on Savanna's part,) until eventually, the train pulled into the station.

Savanna had changed over the summer. Her skit was a few inches shorter and her lips were painted a dull red. Her hair was teased, her shirt a bit too tight, and she walked around as though she was following after her chest.

The other girls had started wearing makeup as well, but they had all taken a more subtle approach, experimenting with gloss and eyeliner; their wardrobes adjusting slightly with the addition of real bras, but otherwise staying much the same.

Mary had dark circles under her eyes and smiled too much, taking extra care to listen to what everyone around her was saying and then retaining that information; locking it away for the future should she ever need it.

Lily and Carlee sat in the corner of the compartment and told each other about the highlights of their summer's as if they hadn't seen each other every other week. They smiled and they laughed and they pretended that the dark circles and the tight shirts were normal.

They did this because when you're younger and your friends try and hide things from you, you work hard to find out what they are and you try to help. You stay up late and you talk and you scheme and you pry until you think you've come up with a brilliant plan to fix everything. Then you grow up, and you realize that you don't know how to help and that it's really easier for everyone if you all just pretend that it's all okay.

They were starting the school year off on a foundation of sand. It was going to be a trying year for the girls, though they all pretended they didn't know it.

oOoOo

"Classes start at nine." Remus said, handing out schedules back in the boy's dormitory. "Like they do every year, so before the three of you start to complain, just don't."

"Spiffing advice, Moony." Remus froze at the mention of his nickname, though Sirius didn't seem to notice. He dropped back onto his bed and toed off his shoes. It had been a joke all summer, calling him that; _Moony_. Remus had laughed along with them, because it was rather fitting, wasn't it? And it had been a couple years now since Sirius had decided that they needed nicknames, Moony was the first one that fit Remus. He had falsely assumed that the nickname was going to disappear once they returned to school, because while it was fitting, it was also rather obvious. "Quality stuff there."

"We're still going to complain." James shrugged, casting a side eye at Remus as he went about taking a Quidditch jersey from his trunk and pinning it to the wall above his bed frame. "It's what we do."

"It's what we're good at." Peter agreed, hanging up some things of his own. A few pictures of the boys, a photo of him and his mother and a picture of a girl that he never talked about. "Always have been-"

"-Always will be." Sirius finished, raising his hand in a mock salute.

"Ridiculous." Remus muttered. He had stood at the foot of his bed listening to this nonsense in a sort of stupor, one brought on by the fact that Sirius was a dunderhead. "Ridiculous." He muttered again, shaking his head and kneeling down to dig through his trunk. "I've got summer homework to finish up, you lot do… Whatever you want." He grabbed his Ancient Runes textbook and walked out the door.

"What did you do that for?" James whipped a pillow across the room at Sirius's head.

"What did I do?" Sirius cried, grabbing the pillow and tossing it over to Peter now.

"You know what you did." Peter said sternly, putting the pillow back on James' bed. "His nickname. It was supposed to be a summer thing."

"No one is going to work it out." Sirius shrugged.

"He thinks they will." James said in a singsong voice.

"Alright mum and dad, I'm sorry."

The other boys soon filed into the dormitory and their conversation came to an end.

oOoOo

"Dad sent Gisele and I to Paris this summer." Savanna was telling Bianca, or really anyone who was listening, as she unpacked her new silk blouses, leather boots and gold earrings. "He's been so good to us these last few months."

Lily leant over her trunk to where Mary was sitting on her bed. "I thought her dad was…"

"Gone?" Mary asked, with her brows raised. "He came back. Apparently _Savvy_ is thrilled."

"Apparently." Lily raised her own brow at her formerly reserved best mate.

"It's real gold." Savanna said, showing them her earrings as her eyes raked over the faces of the on looking girls, waiting for them to say something.

Arianna, a nice Welsh girl who usually only spoke with a girl named Janis (another Gryffindor fourth year) nodded with false enthusiasm at the earrings, so much false enthusiasm that locks of her thick brown hair fell out of her hair tie and into her face. "They are very pretty, Savanna."

"Oh!" Savanna shook her head and giggled. "That's another thing, I would appreciate it if you all called me 'Savvy' from now on. My dad started calling me that, and it just seems more, _me._ You know?" The girls muttered their assent, but their lack of energy on the topic didn't deter Savanna in the slightest. To make matters better, she didn't appear to be done talking about her summer either. "Have any of you ever been to Paris?"

"Oui." Bianca said, looking non-to-amused as she hung her robes in the wardrobe between her and Arianna's beds. "J'ai vécu en France." Savanna, who most likely only understood the first and last word of what Bianca had said, blinked in her direction a few times before shrugging and returning to whatever she had wanted to say about her trip.

Lily had unpacked her trunk as much as she cared to and then wandered over to Carlee's trunk. She dug through it for a moment before coming across what she had been looking for, a bag of jelly slugs. She held it up victoriously, but only for a moment because Mary soon snatched it from her and jumped onto Carlee's bed to prevent Lily from getting it back so quickly.

Carlee, who had been in the bathroom, putting away her toiletries, returned to find Mary and Lily jumping on and off her bed, chasing each other around. She spotted the bag of candy, which she correctly assumed came from her own trunk, quickly brandished her wand and summoned the candy across the room and to her out stretched hand.

"Oi!" Mary shouted, before seeing who had taken the candy. Lily and her quickly dropped into a sitting position on the edge of Carlee's bed.

"Don't make me tell my brother on you." Carlee said with a satisfied smirk. "He's Head Boy now you know."

"Sorry." Lily said, looking only slightly ashamed of herself.

"I'm not. I want some candy." Mary said, holding out her hands. "Please." She added as an afterthought.

"Hello!" Savanna called from across the room, causing Mary to drop a few of the jelly slugs that Carlee had just poured into her hands. "You three aren't listening to me."

"I'm sorry, Savan- _Savvy_." Lily said, shaking her head. "I was distracted by sweets."

"Speaking of sweets, I got myself and owl named Lollie-" And she was off again, talking to no one in particular but under the impression that she had the attention of everyone in the room. Lily, Mary and Carlee all exchanged a nervous glance at Savanna's expense and then returned back to their own sections of the room to get ready for bed.

oOoOo

There was always something unsettling about going to DADA every year. By now, they all knew that they were going to have a new professor, but that didn't make it any less strange. Nothing at Hogwarts changed. All of the other professors were stagnant, the castle itself was stagnant, the forest, Hagrid's hut, the train, Hogsmeade, their classmates… Apart from Dumbledore's beard growing a few extra inches and everyone getting older (but imperceptibly so because they were all aging alongside one another), nothing changed.

What really got to the students this year was that no one had told them what had happened to their previous professor. Professor Jewel had been extremely old (it had been rumored that she had attended Hogwarts with Dumbledore) so she might have died, but no one told them anything. It was just accepted that she was gone and that they had a new teacher.

This new Professor was neither young nor old but somewhere in between. He was tall and lean, with spidery legs, and arms that were comically disproportionate to the rest of his body.

"My name is Professor Swindal," He said, looking just above the heads of the students as he turned, scanning the room.

"First day jitters?" James muttered, tilting his chair back so he was leaning against the back wall. "Or is he going to be another Binns and refuse to make eye contact?" Sirius snickered.

"He's got wonky arms." Peter said, squinting and cocking his head to the side. "It's like his body ran out of long and thin genes a bit too early."

"And why does he pick his feet up so high while he walks?" Sirius asked, sweeping the hair off his forehead. "He looks like a puppet."

"He's trying not to trip over his feet. Which looks like quite the task." James said, staring at the long, thin black shoes the professor was wearing.

"You three are terrible." Remus sighed, though he wasn't paying any more attention to what Swindal was saying than they were.

"This class is especially relevant to your generation seeing as how the government seems unable to do anything these days and there are maniacal, crazed, lunatics walking around free, able to maim and kill as they please." This caught everyone's attention. James' chair fell back onto all four legs with a loud clack, and he and the other three marauders leant forward simultaneously.

"What did he just say?" Someone from the other side of the room whispered.

"I said," Swindal spun around and faced the unsuspecting Slytherin. "You're all going to need to know at least the basics, of defense. Not because they will be on your O.W.L.S. next year, though they will, but because I'm afraid that too many of you will be put in a situation where you will need to know how to defend off dark magic." He spun around again, his legs going out to far and his arms not doing much for keeping him balanced, he didn't fall though. He didn't even come close. "Potter!"

James jumped slightly, and then coughed. "Yes, Sir?"

"Front and center." Swindal snapped.

"In trouble already, Potter?" Charles Avery snickered.

"Five points from Slytherin." Swindal spoke directly and without preamble, not even bothering to look at who had spoken. James didn't even have time to throw a smug glance at Avery before Swindal had reached out one of his stubby arms and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around so he was facing the entire class in the very front of the room. "Your mother is Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, yes?"

"Y-yes." James caught Lily's eye and she shrugged. She was sitting in the front of course, Severus Snape on one side and Carlee Baker on the other.

"And," Swindal drew his attention away from Lily. "That must mean that you are well trained in Defensive spells, yes?"

"Well- I mean- no." James said. "No more so than anyone else in the room, sir."

Swindal stopped moving his spidery legs momentarily and crossed his arms, giving James a disapproving glance. "That," He spat, "It entirely irresponsible."

"I'm fourteen!" James ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sure my parents don't want me to think that I'm capable of taking on some Death Eaters-"

"I never said that any of you would leave this room being able to 'take on,' as you put it, a Death Eater. You will simply have a fighting chance at surviving when I'm through with you."

"Excuse me," Kyle Wilkes raised his hand briefly before continuing. "What about those of us that have no reason to fear the Death Eaters? Do we get a different curriculum for the year?" A few Slytherins around him snickered and Professor Swindal's mouth pressed together to form a long, thin line.

"I would hope," He said, sounding much less eccentric than he had thus far. "That even someone like you, Wilkes, would understand the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in today. You and your friends may not be in any danger of being physically attacked, the Death Eaters might not want to take _your_ wand and _your_ right to live in the world you grew up in, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that you have no reason to fear the Death Eaters.

Every liberty that is denied to your fellow magical kind, is a liberty that you are in danger of losing. Every wrong that is done to them is echoed throughout the entity that you have called home. You should be afraid, because of the power that these men have so easily taken without consent. You should be afraid of what else they are capable of, because yes, Mister Wilkes, they are not targeting you today, but what's going to stop them from targeting you tomorrow?"

"My blood status." Wilkes crossed his arms over his chest and jutted out his jaw. Swindal's mouth twitched and his fingers slowly clenched into a fist.

"You're missing the point." He spun around on his heel. "James, maybe you can explain it to him in a different way."

"What?" James' hand jumped to his hair again.

"Explain to your classmates the gravity of what's going on."

"It's wrong." James said. "It's horrible, it's-"

"Yes, it's bad. Why?"

"They're claiming superiority."

"Exactly. And why do they have that superiority?"

"They think they have it because their Pure Bloods and that somehow gives them more claim to the magical world." Swindal clicked his tongue and spun away from James, opening his arms towards the class.

"Can anyone please explain to Mr. Wilkes why this is a bad thing?"

"Why don't we switch the roles around?" Lily said, playing with the ends of her hair. She bit her lip and scrunched up her nose. "Sorry, I should have raised my hand."

"No no, I like where you were going. Continue."

"Well imagine if the world was reversed. Where it was the norm to be a Muggle Born, and being from a family of all wizards was strange and different. What if these Death Eaters only wanted to celebrate people who were unique and the first in their bloodline to have magic? What if they thought that being the first made you more powerful or better at learning magic. What if they were attacking people who came from magical families? If that's what they were doing, everyone would understand how wrong it was. It wouldn't even be a question of belief, it would just be a simple moral issue. Because you can't punish someone for the way they were born, you can't hold their parentage against them."

"That would be stupid." Wilkes said, sitting up a bit straighter and leaning across his desk. "In what world would that ever happen? Who in their right mind, would think that people like you are-"

"Kyle," Swindal interrupted him. "I think it would be most wise if you did not finish that sentence. Though I believe that you are beginning to understand the Muggle borns perspective a bit better." He turned his gaze back over to Lily. "What is your name, dear?"

"Lily Evans."

"Well, Lily Evans, I think you understand the situation a lot better than most." He turned back to James, who was still stuck standing in the middle of the room. "Did you understand what she said?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you agree with it?"

"It made sense to me, yes."

"Good." He walked about ten paces away from James and then spun around faced him. "Do you know how to cast a protection charm?"

"I know_ Protego_." James shrugged, pulling his wand out.

"I hope so." He smiled and winked at James. And then he proceeded to hex him.

oOoOo

Professor Swindle wasn't the only professor that seemed to want to prepare the students for life after Hogwarts. Lily walked into Transfiguration and took a seat next to James, because they had this class with Ravenclaw, and that meant that Severus wasn't there to make her feel bad about it.

It's not as though she had planned to sit next to him either, they were still talking when they went to sit down and sitting next to each other seemed to be the obvious thing to do. She didn't notice Sirius huff a bit as he fell into the chair on the other side of James or the glare that Carlee sent Sirius as she took the chair on the other side of Lily.

"He didn't even hesitate to dock points." Lily said as she pulled out her new textbook. The binding had been cracked, but she hadn't looked at it nearly as much as she would have liked to. Maybe if she hadn't seen her Grandmother so much this summer, or if Carlee hadn't been over so much, or if her sister hadn't hidden her things every other week...

"I know!" James laughed. "Wilkes said something horrible and Swindle just shut him down. It was brilliant."

"I still think he looks wonky." Sirius sighed, pulling out a bag of sugar quills. "His short arms and all."

"And he kept picking his feet up too high." James added.

"He did look a bit like a puppet." Lily allowed, which only made Sirius roll his eyes because he had already made that observation an hour previous. "I think he's going to be a great professor though."

"I about jumped out of my skin when he threw that first hex at me."

"You got your shield up though. It was pretty impressive."

"Yes, everything James does is mighty imp-"

"Good morning, class." Sirius was interrupted by a very put off looking McGonagall. "Please take out your textbooks and open them to page 321."

"321?" Lily whispered in confusion, opening her book nevertheless, and turning to nearly the end of the book.

"What's got her knickers in a twist?" Sirius muttered. He didn't see the look that Lily threw him.

"I'm more concerned with why we're skipping ahead to the end of the curriculum." She said in a tone that suggested that if he continued talking about the Professor's knickers she would throw her book at his head. Once again, she missed his huff of frustration.

James however, sitting right in the middle of them, had caught it all. He looked nervously between his best mate and the girl he fancied. Fortunately for everyone, Professor McGonagall was not about to give them time to think about such things.

"I am aware that it is the first day of classes and we normally start closer to the beginning of our textbooks, but after what I just witnessed in the corridor…" She trailed off, shaking her head. Lily noticed that her normally immaculate looking bun had a few strand of hair hanging down, and her cheeks were a bit flushed. When she spoke, she seemed to deflate slightly. She no longer looked intimidating or harsh, but tired and sad. "I hope that you all know that I care a great deal for the individual safety of each and every one of you. If any of you should ever feel threatened or frightened because of the actions of _anyone_ in this school, I don't want you to hesitate to come and talk to me. As students of Hogwarts, _all_ of you have a right to feel safe within these walls. And while I may not be able to ensure your safety outside of this castle, I'll be damned if I'll let anything happen to you while you're here." The students all blanched at her use of an explicit, and quite frankly, the rest of her speech as well.

"There aren't many Transfiguration spells that will do you any good in a duel, but there are a few that will help you out a great deal and a few is all you really need." She took a deep breath and gained some of her usual sternness back. "On page 321, there is a list of five spells that you are all more than capable of casting at this point in your education, the first one on the list is…"

And that's how the fourth year Gryffindors spent the first two classes of their fourth year learning how to protect themselves with the help of two very angry professors.

It wasn't until dinner that night that they found out the reason for one of their professors' anger.

oOoOo

The Marauders were sitting on the far end of the Gryffindor table, a bit of space between them and the rest of the students because dinner had officially ended ten minutes ago. James pulled his copy of the Daily Prophet out of his bag and pulled the string that held it all together, tossing it at Peter.

"You haven't read that yet?" Remus asked, helping himself to another plate of mashed potatoes.

"You aren't done eating yet?" James countered. Remus just shrugged.

"You might want to eat some more as well, Potter." Sirius said, a sly grin on his face. "Don't want Remus to get taller than you too." James was going to shoot an insult back at him, but the front page of the Prophet caught his attention.

**3 Suspected Death Eaters Walk Free**

Remus, who was sitting next to James, spit his mouthful of potatoes across the table at Sirius. "How the hell did that happen?" He asked, ignoring Sirius's sounds of indignation.

"What?" Peter asked.

James read the headline aloud and then continued on to the article, ignoring the protests of his friends at times and speaking over them at others. "_Yesterday afternoon, after much of the wizarding world had laid their head to rest, a group of ministry men and woman were holed up discussing the fate of three suspected Death Eaters captured last year by Aurors Moody, McKinnon and MacDonald. The three men, Tybalt Malfoy, Clarence Flint and Mario Travers have been released and cleared of all charges, including Travers murder charges. The court decided, after months of imprisonment for the three men, that there was not sufficient evidence to keep them detained and, in the words of our Minister there's, "No proof that they did any of the crimes that they are being accused of. The Aurors have had their fun, running after false leads and keeping them here on technicalities, but it's time for these men to return home to their families." Later, in an address to the public, the Minister stated that he is going to take a personal interest in the on goings in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to ensure that mistakes like this don't happen in the future. One has to wonder though, was it a mistake? Are we to believe that three Aurors arrested and imprisoned three men without reason? The fact that the names of those who made this decision have still not been released, along with the satisfied smirk that was on Flint's face as he was walked out of the ministry by an enraged looking junior Auror should give us all pause._" James put the paper down and finally allowed his friend to say something.

"Is that all?" Remus said quickly, grabbing at the paper.

"It continues on page four." James said quietly.

"Merlin." Peter said, pushing his half-empty plate away from him and slumping over. "Moody caught those blokes and now they're being let go?"

"The Minister let them go." Sirius muttered. "No wonder Swindal and McGonagall were so pissed today." James nodded in agreement.

"That's not why they were upset." Remus said. "Well, I mean it was, but…" He sighed and read another headline. "**Corruption in the D.M.L.E.** It's by some bird named Rita Skeeter and it's going to make you very angry, James." Remus jerked the paper a bit to straighten it out and then read a few sentences from the article. "_Last year around mid-October, an attack on St. Mungo's employees put an extra strain on the Aurors to capture the men that we now know go by the name, 'Death Eater.' _It goes on for a bit about nothing in particular- and then, _Liza Potter, head of the D.M.L.E., was particularly incentivized to lay the blame on someone seeing as how her husband, Charles Potter, a St. Mungo's healer of undetermined skill, had been one of the healers to be attacked. It is unclear, why she was not taken off the case to prevent such mistakes that ensued._" Remus rubbed the back of his neck. "She goes on, basically just agreeing with the Minister and bashing your mum."

"You've got to be kidding me." James snapped, pushing himself up from the table, unable to sit there any longer. He needed to get up and move around. "My mum wasn't one of the Aurors who captured those arse-hats! She was as involved in that case as the Minister was." The rest of the boys got up and followed him. "I know this because she was at the hospital with my dad and me for about three weeks after the St. Mungo's attack." His ranting was causing most of the remaining students in the Great Hall to turn and listen, but James didn't care. "Who is this Skeeter lady anyway and why is the Daily Prophet printing anything she writes? '_Undetermined skill' _Ha!"

"Where are we going?" Peter asked.

"I don't know!" James shouted, scaring a second year into jumping out of his way. Remus quietly apologized to the girl as James continued ranting and raving through the corridor. "Why would she say things like that?" He stopped walking, causing Peter to run into him, and looked as though something had just struck him on the head. "And how the hell did those three get released from prison?" He started walking again.

"You know the answer to that." Sirius muttered, his arms crossed over his chest and a bitter look on his face. "They're elite Purebloods, their names are part of the _Sacred Twenty-Eight. _They can do whatever the hell they want and as long as there's not a living witnesses of equal blood status, there's nothing anyone can do about it."

"It's not right!" James all but shouted. "_Moody_ was the arresting Auror for two of the three. _Moody!" _He repeated. "Doesn't that mean anything?" Sirius shrugged.

"The Minister hates, Moody." Remus said. "And I'm willing to bet money that Henderson was part of the court that let them walk."

"Of course he was." Sirius laughed. "Wasn't his wife a Malfoy?"

"Yes." James huffed. "This is- this is fucked up."

"Immensely fucked up." Sirius agreed.

The four boys meandered about the corridors, following an angry James with no particular destination in mind. Eventually they ended up at the end of the corridor that would lead them to the kitchens, which seemed about right to James. Whenever he was upset, he would march towards the direction of food. Having just stuffed himself senseless at supper however, he didn't really want to go to the kitchens.

It was an unfortunate coincidence really. The fact that James wasn't in the mood for food and had to turn right onto the corridor that would take the Marauders up to the fourth floor and on their way to the Gryffindor Tower; the same corridor that the Slytherins normally took while on their way from the library. And then there was the fact that Severus Snape, Kyle Wilkes and Charles Avery had decided to meet up in the library a couple hours previously and had been on their way back to their common room at the exact moment that would have them cross paths with the Marauders.

The two groups of boys saw each other come into view and James automatically stuck his hands into his pockets, his fist tightening around his wand. He had been in one too many corridors with Slytherins to do anything else.

No one said anything for a long while, and it seemed as though no one was going to, that they would just pass each other and continue on their way. But James had read the paper and Severus had seen James sitting next to Lily in the Great Hall.

"Snivellus." James sneered, brushing his shoulder against the Slytherins as he passed him. While James continued down the corridor, Snape stopped walking and spun around, images of Lily's smiling face running through his mind, a smile that James had put there.

"What the hell is your problem, Potter?" Wilkes and Avery turned to face the Gryffindors, looking more than happy to participate in a corridor-brawl. The Marauders stopped as well, two of them looking like there was nothing that they'd rather do, and two of them looking quite nervous about what they all knew was about to happen.

"What the hell is _my_ problem?" James laughed, clenching his hands into fists at his sides, his wand still in hand.

"That's what I asked." Snape muttered.

"You and your little friends strut around the school, looking down on everyone and _I'm_ the one with the problem?" James took a deep breath and shook his head. "You've got one twisted sense of what constitutes a problem, mate."

"Careful, James." Sirius said with a smirk. "If you use too many big words, Avery won't understand what you're saying."

"Fuck you, Black."

"See?" Sirius's smirk grew. "All one syllable words from him." James laughed and Wilkes walked up a few steps, with a smirk of his own.

"Don't worry about them, blokes." He said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking far more pompous than any fourteen year old had the right to. "They're just a little peeved about Malfoy and the lot being released from prison." He had hit the right (or wrong, depending on how you're looking at things) cord, and he knew it too. James' jaw tightened considerably and Sirius shifted from one foot to the other.

"Even you three have to admit that they shouldn't have been released." Remus said, a bit shocked despite himself. "They were caught red-handed."

"They didn't do anything wrong." Wilkes said, still grinning. "And the testimonies against them were weak, I mean, Travers was captured by _MacDonald._ He's a Mudblood! Why the hell would anyone believe what he's got to say over someone like Travers?"

"Don't use that word." James snapped. And for his credit, Severus didn't look as though he disagreed with James at that moment. "And they should believe _Auror_ MacDonald over Travers because Travers is scum and-"

"Travers is my Uncle, so watch how you talk about him." Avery said, stepping forward to line up with the other two Slytherins.

"Shut up, Avery." Snape muttered. "And I think the real reason Potter is upset is because someone at the Prophet is finally calling his mum out." Wilkes and Avery looked at Severus, both furrowing their brows, not having read the smaller article in the middle of the paper. James knew that he was talking about the Skeeter article though.

"Calling his mum out? What are you talking about?" Wilkes asked.

"Rita Skeeter," Severus answered, "She wrote a _fascinating _article about how Liza Potter is abusing her power as head of the D.M.L.E. to make it appear as though she's not an incompetent, hopeless, old hag."

The first thing James shouted was, "_Expelliarmus_!" Knocking Severus off his feet and causing both Wilkes and Avery to fire hexes as well. By the time Severus was on his feet again, Sirius had been knocked off his due to a Jelly Legs jinx, and Remus had cast a quick protection spell to prevent Wilkes' Knock Back jinx from hitting either him or Peter.

Severus, having received all the reason he needed to retaliate, pulled out his own wand. He looked rather determined as he snapped his wand in James' direction, keeping his mouth closed. James hesitated, not knowing what spell Severus was trying to hit him with when his feet were yanked out from under him and pulled towards the ceiling, where he hung five feet off the ground for a few seconds and then plummeted back down to the floor.

"What the bloody he-"

"Excuse me!" All seven of the boys turned to see Professor Swindal traipsing down the corridor, the tips of his large shoes scraping the stone floors as he went. "What in Merlin's name is going on here?" Both Wilkes and Avery started speaking at the same time, but Swindal held up a hand, and turned to look at Remus, who had been standing off to the side with Peter during much of the fight, casting only _Protego_. "Why was this young man," He nodded at James. "Hanging from the air?"

Remus looked at James and then Sirius before shrugging. "There was a slight altercation, sir."

"A slight altercation?" Swindal repeated, non-too amused. "Is it allowed for students to get into 'slight alterations'?"

"Sure." Sirius shrugged, testing the new Professor. Swindal raised a brow and crossed his arms. "Well, I mean, they don't expect us to get along all the time," In a quieter voice, "We're just not supposed to attack each other."

"That's what I thought." He frowned and stared down each boy. "All of you will serve detention with me for the next three nights. Report to my classroom at seven o'clock tomorrow. Fail to show up on time and I will hand you over to the caretaker, Mr… Filch, is it?" They nodded. "Now get to your common rooms, lights out is soon."

There were mutterings of 'yes, sir' and then they split back into groups and went their separate ways.

None of them spoke to one another until they reached their dormitory. Frank Longbottom was already in the room, sitting on his bed and finishing some homework. James marched over to his bed and kicked open his trunk.

"You didn't have to do that." Remus muttered, unable to help himself. "We could have walked away."

"You heard what he said about my mum." James muttered, throwing a few pairs of shoes onto the floor, in search of his nightclothes.

"Yes, but we all knew that what he was saying was a lie." Remus pushed. "It wasn't true, your mum is great at her job and almost everyone thinks so."

"Besides," Peter added. "What do you care what Snape thinks? He's a slimy git."

"I don't care what he thinks!" James yanked his pants out of his trunk, threw it on his bed and then started undoing his tie.

"What happened?" Frank finally asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

"Shouldn't you be with your girlfriend?" Sirius snapped, quite angry himself.

Frank raised his brow and tried to catch Peter's eye. Peter was still trying to talk to James however and missed it. "She's studying with Felicity and Carlee. What's got you in such a lovely mood?"

"Did you read the paper?" James asked, choosing to ignore Remus and Peter entirely. "Firstly, how did they get out of prison?" Frank opened his mouth and James spoke up, "Don't answer that, I know the answer, it's just pissing me off. Secondly, there was a second article printed about how my mum is using her power in the ministry to lock up people that she doesn't like and further her political career."

"We ran into some people who seemed to share that opinion." Sirius said. "So we had a bit of an argument."

"With their wands." Remus sighed. "And now we all have detention for the next three days."

"With the Slytherins." Peter muttered.

"With the Slytherins." Remus repeated with a sigh. "Don't know why he thought sticking them all in a room together _again_ would be a good idea."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Reviews are the shit, my friends. <strong>


	2. The Daily Prophet(s)

**Chapter 2: The Daily Prophet(s)**

The Marauders all entered Professor Swindal's open office at ten to seven. They would have been there later, but Remus had been quite insistent that they weren't late for once in their lives, and since it had been James and Sirius's fault that Remus was in detention in the first place, they decided to let him have his way this one time. That didn't stop Sirius from grouching about how 'Moony' really should have thrown in a good spell or two, but Remus seemed pleased that they were willing to help him try and repair his reputation with the DADA professor by showing up early to detention, so he ignored the use of his nickname.

When they walked through the open door, they were a bit surprised that Swindal was not in the room. His large desk saw opposite the door, a stack of scrolls lined both sides, but the seat behind it was vacant.

"Where do you think he is?" Peter asked, looking behind them to make sure the professor wasn't going to sneak up on them.

"I don't know. But this is why you don't show up to detention _early_." Sirius sighed, taking a look around the room. In fact, all four of the boys couldn't help but look around. There was so much _stuff_ in the room. Boxes and boxes of what appeared to be copies of the daily prophet were all stuffed into about every crack and crevice that they could see. On both sides of the room, boxes lined the walls, they were balancing on armchairs, on end tables, on the fireplace. Some of the newspapers had been stuck to the wall, and others had been crumpled up and tossed in the rubbish bin.

One place that looked as though it had been deliberately cleared, was a long bench that was placed right in front of the desk. The Marauders decided that they should take a seat while they waited for their professor as to avoid getting lost in the clutter, or knocking into something and drowning in newspapers.

They waited until seven, and then they heard footsteps out in the corridor. Remus turned his torso towards the door, ready to greet the professor and offer some sort of apology for having been placed in detention in the first place, but Swindal didn't walk in. Instead it was the Slytherins.

Wilkes, Avery and Snape walked in one after another and silently took seats on the bench next to the Marauders, Wilkes keeping as much space as he could between Peter and himself, but the bench only allowed for a few extra inches.

Sirius started chewing the insides of his cheeks, not wanting to start something with them when he knew that the teacher would be entering the room any second now. James shoved his fists in his pockets, thinking something along the same line. Severus's jaw was set, Remus was tense. Other than leaning away from Peter, Wilkes seemed to be the only one who didn't much care that he was in a room with the Marauders. He looked almost bored, which was a nice contrast to Avery's violent expression.

The clock above Swindal's desk ticked on… five minutes past seven, ten minutes past seven, and there was still no professor.

"Maybe he's forgotten about us." Peter whispered, wringing his hands nervously. Avery's lip twitched and his mouth opened slightly, but he thought better of it and didn't say anything.

Finally, at twenty past, Swindal walked through the door, his large shoes dragging on the flagstone floor. When he reached the back of the room, he spun to face the boys and leaned back on the front of his desk. "Good evening everyone." He said as though he hadn't arrived twenty minutes late. "I hope you've all learned a very valuable lesson."

James and Sirius looked at each other with raised brows. "Excuse me, professor?" James shifted on the bench, "Was that our detention?"

"Of course not." Swindal almost laughed. "That was a little experiment that I needed your help with. See, I wanted to prove that there was an extremely simple way to go about avoiding conflict. I left you all in a room, knowing that you didn't get along very well, but I knew that nothing would happen. I knew that you would all be able to hold your tongues because you didn't know when I was going to arrive and you didn't wish to get into any more trouble. I did this because I wanted to show you that it was possible for you to occupy the same general space and not to fight with one another." He looked around the room, making eye contact with each of the boys before continuing. "It all comes back to an extremely old rule, some of you may know it as the 'golden rule'. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Sirius almost wanted to risk glancing over at James, but he didn't think he would be able to keep a straight face if he did that.

"Now, for your detentions." He stood up and spun around the room, motioning to all the boxes. "You may have noticed that my office has been over taken by newspapers. I've always collected them, I never had much use for them, but I don't like throwing them out. Something stops me every time and I find myself wondering, 'What if I need this later?' There isn't an easy way to get ahold of every Prophet printed in the last decade, unless you already own every Prophet printed in the last decade."

"_Every _Prophet?" Wilkes asked, a bit slack jawed.

"Yes. Well, almost every prophet. There are a few that I've thrown out because they printed absolutely nothing worth my time." Swindal pinched the bridge of his nose and looked as though this fact was a personal affront. "And while I used to be very anal about keeping them in order, there was an… incident recently, and now they are in no order what so ever, and I find myself having a hard time finding the ones that I'm looking for." He waved a hand towards the wall behind him where he had some Prophets stuck to the wall. "I've been able to find a few of the ones I was looking for, but it would be a lot easier for me if they were back in chronological order. Not only for now, but for future reference as well."

"Not to be disrespectful, sir," Sirius said while looking around the room. He shook his head and sighed, "But why would you want all of these? Half of what the Prophet prints in garbage."

"Yes, but the other half is invaluable. And even the 'garbage,' to use your word, has it's uses." Swindal pulled out his wand from his cloak pocket and gave it a sharp jab. Seven bins appeared, one before each of the boys. "I think the easiest way to do this will be to assign you all certain years, and go from there. Severus, you'll collect years 1965 and 1966. Charles, 67 and 68. Kyle, 69 and 70. Peter, you'll collect everything from 71, Remus, 72. James, 73. And Sirius, everything from this year please."

"Why do they only get one year?" Avery snapped, standing up.

"Because, I have already picked through the 60's, and there isn't as many. I've kept everything from the last two years, so James and Sirius will have to collect the most in all likelihood. But if you'd like to switch with one of them…" Avery reached down, grabbed his bin, and marched off to the left side of the room. Snape quickly followed him.

James took his bin and started sorting through a box that was near the bench. The professor took a seat behind his desk and started going through the stack of scrolls.

"Why do you need them all sorted out now? I mean, now specifically." James asked, hoping Swindal wouldn't mind his curiosity. He didn't seem to, as he set aside his scroll and angled his chair so he was facing James.

"I never wanted them unsorted." He answered, and James couldn't help but feel as though he was being deliberately vague. "But there have been some… _things_ coming up in the most recent Prophets that have made me want to go back and comb over previous articles."

"Aren't there books of all the Prophets in the Ministry?" Sirius asked. "Or in the library?"

"Most likely." Swindal said. "But these are my papers, and you all needed a menial task to do anyway… So here we are." Sirius sighed and continued sorting through his papers.

"And those records are regulated." Remus said. "Especially now, certain things will have been taken out." Swindal gave Remus an approving nod and James had to duck his head to keep from laughing when Remus' face split into a grin.

"What will you be looking for?" James asked. He didn't mind having to sort through all of these papers. In all likelihood, this was going to end up being one of the more interesting detention he'd have.

"Discrepancies." Swindal said, spinning his chair back around. James pulled a paper from 1970 out of the bin and shook it flat. _Three Muggles found dead in the woods, Killing curse suspected. _He had forgotten that there had been signs. That this didn't all just appear one day. Death Eaters didn't just pop up out of the ground and start killing anyone they pleased, there were the earlier attacks. When they were catching who was behind it, but they weren't calling themselves Death Eaters, they were just men.

James looked at the article. _On what should be a day of celebration for England, as our national team just took home the World Cup, a shadow has been cast over our fine country instead. Answering a peculiar muggle officer's call, Auror Marcus McKinnon arrived at the edge of the Black Forest to find a family of three muggles lying dead in a tent. The muggle police were unable to find any reason for the family to have died, but upon close inspection from Healer Charles Potter, of St. Mungo's, it is suspected that the Muggles perished at the hand of the killing curse, the most frightening and drastic of the unforgivable curses. The father appeared to have subtle defensive wounds, but Healer Potter told Aurors that it appeared that the mother and daughter where asleep when the attack took place—_

"James isn't even doing anything." Avery pulled James' attention away from the article. Swindal looked from James to Avery and sighed.

"He's reading the paper, Charles. As a teacher, I find it incredibly ill advised to deter my students from reading something that will help them become more aware of their surroundings and the world that they live in. You're more than welcomed, encouraged even, to look through the papers and read any articles that stand out to you."

James tossed the paper over to Wilkes, "Your year."

"Thanks." He picked up the paper and put it in his bin. "I remember that." He said, pointing at the article that James had read. "My dad and I were just getting back home after the game, mum was worried out of her mind. They found a dead snake too."

"What is it?" Avery asked, allowing himself to be curious now that Wilkes had the paper.

"Remember when they found those three muggles in the woods after the World Cup?" Wilkes shrugged. "That was one of the first attacks I think."

"I agree." Swindal said, still looking over the scrolls.

"You mean the first of the Death Eater attacks?" Sirius asked. "They caught the men who did it though, didn't they? A couple of blokes fresh out of Azkaban?"

Sirius and Wilkes continued to discuss the murder of the muggles, but James' had started to go through his box again and had found the paper detailing his father's attack. He put it in his bin without reading it over, but couldn't help but think about the events surrounding the attack.

There had been a proposed bill that would make it almost impossible for muggles to enter St. Mungo's. The men behind the bill were mainly rich, pure bloods who thought that they were protecting their own interests, but then the Death Eaters caught wind of the bill. What should have been a small matter of a bill never seeing the light of day turned into a media frenzy and a very dangerous political game.

Charles Potter had been one of the leading spokespersons of the hospital, voicing his opposition against the bill. He had explained to everyone that would listen that if the bill passed, that would mean keep muggles who had been attacked by magic out of the hospital, as well as the family members of muggle-borns and half-bloods. He was convincing and it looked like the votes were going to go his way.

On the day of the vote, a few men in masks had entered the room and poisoned everyone with an airborne agent. A few weeks later, while all the original voters were either dead, scared out of their minds or still being hospitalized, there was another vote held in secret, sanctioned by the Minister of Magic, and the bill was passed.

James' dad had been unconscious for almost three weeks, and it had been the most terrifying experience that James had ever gone through. When Charles Potter had woken up, he was livid and that's when he and Liza Potter decided that they needed a new Minister.

"-we didn't know that there were Death Eaters, though." James shook his head and started paying attention to the conversation going on around him. Sirius and Wilkes were still talking, and James was surprised to find that Sirius didn't look upset at all. Neither did Wilkes. It actually looked like the two boys were getting along. "There might not have been. All I'm saying is that this could have been an unrelated attack. I mean, it didn't used to be common, but it wasn't unheard of for some unhinged git to go out, get sloshed and murder some muggles. There is a reason we have very strictly enforced anti-muggle hunting laws."

"I think that's mainly to do with your aunt, actually." Wilkes laughed. Sirius cracked a grin.

"Nah, she was trying to get them repealed. Merlin my family is horrible."

"Alright, we're no longer in the realm of intelligent conversation. Please get back to work." Swindal said, looking up from his scrolls to give Sirius and Wilkes a hard look.

"What did you do before you came here?" James asked, suddenly struck with the thought that it had never occurred to him before. He couldn't picture Swindal as anything other than a professor, and it had never dawned on him that he had been anything but a professor. That was absurd however, because he had to have done something in the years before he came here.

Swindal looked up from his scroll again and James noticed that he wasn't the only one interested in what Swindal was about to say. "I've done many things. Mainly working for the ministry."

"As what?" Sirius asked.

"Were you an unspeakable?" Wilkes asked, looking rather excited at the prospect.

"I'm afraid not." Swindal smiled. "Is that something you're interested in?"

"I guess." Wilkes said. "But what did you do?"

"I worked in the D.M.L.E." He said, looking back down at his scroll. "I'm afraid that's all I can say."

"Why?" Peter asked from his spot near the back of the room.

"Boys," Swindal sighed and tapped his fingers along his desk. "It is my job to make sure that you all become informed citizens of our world, to make you aware of things that are happening and to help you think critically about them. You're all going to be asked, far sooner than I would like, to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, and I'm going to give you every reason I can to choose what is right. I left my job at the D.M.L.E. to come and work with you, to try and save as many of you as I can. I need you to atone for my sins if you will. I wasn't a good man before, I'm still not a good man, but I'm done doing what's easy. That's all you need to know."

oOoOo

Lily and Severus' relationship was very much like a roller-coaster, and it started at the beginning of summer. It was nice then, you were still excited that you got on the ride, not yet feeling any pangs of regret because you haven't reached the first hill yet, it's just pleasant. But then you do get to the first hill, and you're trekking slowly up it, cursing at yourself all the while, wondering what on earth made you think that this was a good idea, that this could possibly be any fun… And then you reach the top of the hill, left with only one more moment to gather your breath before plummeting down towards the ground, imminent death has to be in your future, but then, at the last possible second, the tracks swoop up and you're saved to ride the ride all over again. And for some reason you do.

Normally, Lily gets to enjoy the ride for a few weeks into school before she starts on the hill and things get tough, this year is not starting out how it normally does however.

First, she hasn't seen Severus nearly as often as she would like. It was only the fifth day back and he was already dodging her. He said that he didn't want to study, he didn't want to eat with her, and he even asked Wane Mulciber to be his partner in Potions instead of her. She tried to pretend that it didn't bother her, but it did. She didn't understand why he was acting that way.

And secondly, he seemed to believe that he was James Potter's keeper now.

When he finally does approach her, instead of the other way around, she was walking to the Black Lake with Carlee to do some Arithmancy homework on the lawn.

"You're mate is at it again." He spat out venomously. "Not even a week into classes, and he's at it again."

Lily turned around, taking in her very bitter best mate. His hair is all out of place, like he's been pulling at it or pushing it back away from his face, and his eyes are wide and full of anger. "Who are we talking about?" Lily asked. She realized who he had to be talking about half a second before he opened his mouth, but it was too late because she'd already asked.

"Who am I talking about?" Severus almost laughed, letting out a breathy sound of exasperation. "_Potter_! I'm talking about Potter. Do you know what he and his mates got up to yesterday evening?"

Lily sighed and pushed her hair behind her ear. "No." She said. "I don't keep tabs on all my friends and their whereabouts."

Severus drew back his shoulders and pressed his lips together. "Well, maybe you should. He attacked me! He and his mates attacked me!"

Lily didn't have more than a few seconds to digest that information when Carlee spoke up from beside her. "That's not exactly what I heard."

"Oh, and Black's word is gospel?"

"I don't talk to Sirius anymore." Carlee said, hand on her hip. "Remus was complaining that he got detention, even though the only thing he did when he and his mates 'attacked' you, as you said, was cast a few protection charms around himself and Peter. Strange that he should need them if he was the one doing the attacking." Severus sneered at her.

"Well we weren't just going to stand there, were we?" Carlee rolled her eyes and Severus returned his attention to the redhead. "I don't understand how you could be friends with him, Lily."

"Sev," Lily rubbed her eyes with her palms and then dropped her hands to her sides. "How come you're always complaining about James? What do you care if I'm friends with him or not? I don't give you flack for hanging out with the people you hang out with, James doesn't give me any trouble for hanging out with you. Why can't you just leave it?"

"So you don't even care?" Severus responded, seemingly missing Lily's point. "He attacked me and you don't care?"

"Of course I care." She said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He quickly pulled away from her and scoffed. "Did you get hurt?"

"No." He snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "Like Potter could do me any real damage."

"Why did-" Lily really thought that she deserved some sort of prize for her patients. "Why did James attack you?" Severus had looked pleased that she was actually showing interest in what had happened until this particular question.

"Does it matter?" He asked, shrugging his shoulders. He began to play with a little metal latch on his book bag and looked at his feet as he said, "He wanted to, so he did. That's how he is, isn't it?"

"Not really." Carlee muttered.

Severus and Lily both ignored her. "I'm sure he didn't just attack you out of the blue. Who was with you? Did someone say something?"

"Wilkes might have said something." Severus shrugged. "But it was still unwarranted."

"Of course it was." Lily agreed. "No matter what was said or done, engaging in a magical altercation with another student is against the rules." Once again, he seemed to miss the point she was making, and the look she was giving him. She took a deep breath and decided that she didn't want to push it. "What do you think of Professor Swindal?" She asked, successfully changing the subject for the time being. She had no doubt that they would eventually return to the subject of James Potter and how he was a horrible rotten person, but for now, Sev was willing to discuss their new Defense professor.

"He's actually the one that caught us." Sev said. "He gave us three nights of detention."

"That was mighty lenient of him." Lily said with a raised brow. "He didn't seem like the type to be forgiving when it came time to dole out punishments."

"Yeah," Sev rubbed his hand along the base of his neck and shrugged. "I'm not sure if he was being lenient. We all have to serve the detention with him all three nights. We served the first one last night and he had us sorting through old newspapers for almost three hours. When we left it was after lights out and he didn't even give us a note or anything."

"Strange." Lily tilted her head to the side. Then she shook it, causing a few strands of her hair to fly about her face. "Regardless of his less than typical discipline techniques, I think he's going to be a really interesting professor to say the least."

"He's got wonky arms." Carlee said, once again reminding Severus and Lily that she was walking with them.

"Why is everyone so hung up on his arms?" Severus asked, trying not to sound as though he thoroughly disliked the blonde Gryffindor. Lily was forgiving when he had nothing nice to say about James, but he didn't think she would let him get away with being anything less than kind to Carlee.

"They are awfully short." Lily shrugged.

oOoOo

The Transfiguration corridor held no pleasant memories for Carlee Baker. It wasn't that anything particularly bad had happened there, it was simply that, the only thing she had to relate to the corridor was Transfigurations, and she wasn't particularly adept at Transfigurations. She managed to get E's most of the time, but had started settling for A's because fourth year Transfigurations was a lot harder than she wanted it to be and she was managing O's in most of her other classes, so she figured that it all balanced out.

She continued to feel this way until Professor McGonagall had decided to partner the class up for an essay project. Ever the difficult Professor, McGonagall decided that it would be best for each partnership to be made of one Gryffindor and one Ravenclaw. So she put the names of all the Gryffindors in one of her many pointed black hats, and then had the Ravenclaws line up and draw a slip of parchment.

Carlee's name had been drawn by a boy with dark, curly hair and a crooked smile. His teeth were a bit too big for his mouth, and his ears a bit too big for his face, but there was no denying that he was a rather attractive fourteen year old bloke. Though, Carlee considered herself to be a rather attractive fourteen year old girl and didn't get nervous around other attractive fourteen year olds. She packed up her bag, because Lily's partner had already came and claimed her current seat, and moved over to where the boy was sitting.

"Carlee Baker, reporting for duty." She said as she plopped into the chair, giving her partner a mock salute.

"Dennis Roy." Dennis Roy said, grinning widely at her. "This seems like an interesting project, no?" Carlee shrugged and decided that she was annoyed with McGonagall for partnering her with a Ravenclaw. They were always so _interested_ in things.

From across the room she could see Mary attempting to look engaged as Benjy Fenwick jabbed her ear off about some such nonsense. She caught her eyes and the girls shared a look before Professor McGonagall called their attention back to the front of the room.

"This project should take about a week to complete. I'm expecting you all to meet with your partners at least once a day until next Friday. You're all dismissed as soon as you turn in your project topic to me."

Dennis started tapping his fingers on his chin and Carlee waited for him to come up with the project idea. "I'm not sure." He said at length. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't know." Carlee shrugged. "You're the one that said this project sounded interesting."

"I know." Dennis said. "But I'm not very good at coming up with ideas. Should we do something that focuses on the history or the mechanics? I think the mechanics would make for a more interesting project. What do you think?"

"Sure." Carlee shrugged, even though she knew she would be far more useful if they did their project on the history of a spell instead. "Let's do Vanishing spells."

"That could be interesting." He raised his brow and nodded at her enthusiastically. Carlee was beginning to hate the word 'interesting.'

"Yeah," Carlee nodded. "I think so too. Do you want to write it down, or should I?"

"I've already got parchment out." Dennis said. He then proceeded to write almost an entire paragraph, when Carlee was pretty sure that all McGonagall had wanted was a sentence or two. After five minute, he stood up and walked to the front of the class, handed McGonagall the parchment and then walked back to Carlee, who had tried to slip out of the classroom before he could make it back. Unfortunately, she had been stuck behind a crowd at the door and Dennis had caught up with her.

"When are you free today?" He asked, walking along behind her. "I don't have any free periods, but I'm good for before or after dinner. Whichever works for you is good with me."

Carlee tugged her bag up her shoulder and shrugged. "Let's go to the library before dinner." She said, thinking that at least this way they would have a cut off time that wasn't lights out. "Around four, in the divination section?"

"Divination section?" Dennis furrowed his brow. "Why would we meet there?"

"Because no one ever uses the divination section and the rest of the library is probably going to be pretty busy today."

"That's a good point." He nodded. "Alright, four in the Divination section. I'll bring some of my own Transfiguration books so we don't have to pick through what everyone else is going to be picking through."

"Sounds good." Carlee said again. Dennis nodded and kept walking along beside her. "Are you always this enthusiastic about assignments?" She asked, hoping that she didn't sound rude.

"What?" Dennis asked, a faint blush creeping up the back of his neck. "I mean, I rather like Transfigurations-"

"And that's great," Carlee said quickly. "I didn't mean to make it sound like I was being mean, I just don't happen across many people who get so excited about writing an essay."

"Well," Dennis looked down at his shoes and pushed some of his fringe away from his eyes. "I guess I might be more excited about who I'm working with in this case."

Carlee laughed. "I don't mean to disappoint you, but I'm dreadful at Transfigurations. I just barely got an 'A' on the last exam and I still haven't managed to completely vanish my feather yet. It keeps leaving little tuffs everywhere." It was now Dennis's turn to laugh, albeit a lot more nervously than Carlee had.

"Your Transfiguration skills had nothing to do with why I'm glad that we're partners."

"Oh." Carlee said, feeling extremely thick.

"You're really pretty." Dennis said quietly, still looking down at his shoes.

"Thanks." Carlee said, feeling her face heat up. She may not get nervous and flustered around people, but flirting was entirely new territory for her. "You're rather good looking yourself." She said, voicing her earlier assessment.

"Thanks." He muttered.

"So," Carlee cleared her throat. "Four o'clock in the library?"

"Yes." Dennis nodded a bit too fast, sending his hair flopping about. "Four o'clock. I'll see you then."

"See you then." Carlee repeated, taking the next right she could even though she needed to continue walking in the same direction Dennis had been going.

That had to have been the most awkward encounter she had ever had with another human being. She leant up against the wall until she no longer felt like her face was burning and then took a deep breath. The library was going to be interesting.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I'm having fun with this year so far. <strong>

**I apologize for the long wait between updates. I've been going through a lot of personal stuff and didn't write anything all last month. That's changed this month though, and I intend to keep it up.**

**Reviews would be lovely. **

**3**


	3. At the Bottom of the Lake

**AN: Well, here we are. This chapter gives you a look into quite a few characters minds, to let you know what everyone's been up to. Enjoy!**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3: At the Bottom of the Lake<strong>

Later in Arithmancy, Lily slid onto the bench next to James and tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, because he had been talking to Frank, and grinned broadly at her.

"Hullo." He said cheerfully.

"Hullo." She said, less cheerfully. After a long and tiresome conversation with Severus earlier that afternoon, she had agreed that she would, at the very _least_, ask James what had happened the other day that had caused the altercation between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors. She didn't know what good Severus thought was going to come out of this, but she had been tired of arguing with him, so she relented.

"What's the problem?" James asked, almost immediately noticing that something was wrong.

"I have to ask you something."

"Alright." He sounded rather confused.

"You're not going to like it."

"Alright." He sounded more confused, and now a bit apprehensive.

"Why did you fight with Sev?"

"Last week?" James asked. Lily realized that it had been almost a week since the fight and that all the detentions had already been served, and if she had to ask him about it, it would have made more sense for her to have done it earlier.

"Yes." She nodded, letting out a sigh as she did so. "Who started it, why did it happen, all the details please." James shifted uncomfortably in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Snape said something nasty about my mum, I hexed him, then his friends joined in and Professor Swindal stopped us."

Lily shook her head and closed her eyes briefly. "Why would he say something about your mum?"

"Does he need a reason?" James huffed, turning away from Lily and taking out his textbook.

"Well," Lily, who was already annoyed that she had to have this conversation in the first place was now getting annoyed with James' attitude about that whole thing. "I've known Sev for quite a while, and he's not usually one to start conversations with people."

"I don't know what to tell you, Lils. He started it."

"Strangely enough, he's saying the same thing about you."

"I don't see why it's any of your business anyhow." James clenched his teeth together and took the stopper out of his inkwell a bit too forcefully, causing him to elbow Frank. He muttered his apology without taking his eyes off his desk.

"Why are you acting like this?" Lily asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Carlee walked into the room, a bit red in the face and breathing heavy.

"I think someone was flirting with me." She said, falling onto the chair beside Lily. Neither James nor Lily made any move to acknowledge her sudden presence.

"You're just going to take his side anyway." James muttered. "What does it matter what I tell you?"

"That's not true."

"Yes it is."

"Yes it is." This time Lily and James glanced over at Carlee. "Oh, so you can hear me?"

"I don't always take Sev's side."

"I didn't even know what you two were talking about, I was just annoyed that no one had acknowledged me." Carlee shrugged, "But you do."

"And he doesn't even deserve it." James said harshly.

"You don't get to decide that." Lily shook her head and clenched her fists. "You don't get to decide what my friends deserve, and you most certainly don't get to tell me how I ought to treat them. I know that the two of you don't get on well, but you can't sit there and tell me that you were perfectly innocent in what happened, can you?"

"Apparently not." James started tapping his fingers on the desk.

"He wouldn't just say something awful to you without being goaded into it."

"Well I don't just hex people on a whim." James shot back.

"But you might have said something to him first." Lily said, not understanding why she was pushing this so far. She hadn't even wanted to talk about this and now she had made James upset with her for no good reason and she couldn't stop herself from arguing with him.

"I might have noticed him." James muttered. "But he was the one looking for a fight."

"What does that even mean? You might have _noticed_ him?" Lily scoffed.

"I don't know. It doesn't matter." James slumped over in his chair and stared determinedly at the black board.

"It does matter." Lily said. When he said nothing else, she huffed. "What did you mean?" He still didn't say anything and Lily sighed in frustration and ripped her textbook out of her bag. "You're acting like a child." She said, slamming the book onto the desk. "I don't know why you can't just talk to me like a regular person." She flipped it open to a random page. "And I don't always take his side."

oOoOo

"He is _such_ a prat." Lily was saying as she and Severus walked to the library to work on some homework.

"I know!" Severus said, wearing a slight grin.

"I'm trying to hold a conversation with him and he keeps trying to make it out like I'm attacking him, which I wasn't. I was only asking him some questions."

"He knows he was in the wrong and you caught him, of course he was trying to turn it around on you." Lily saw that he seemed excited, but she let it slide. She had something else to bring up anyhow, and she didn't want him getting too upset with her.

She bit her lip and cocked her head to the side, not sure if she should mention it at all, but much like earlier with James, she couldn't really stop the words from falling off her lips before she had time to stop and think it through. "What did you say about his mum?"

"What?" Sev's head snapped around so he was looking directly at her and his brows narrowed. "I didn't say anything about his mum."

"He said that you did." Maybe she wanted to fight with him because she felt like she needed to prove that she didn't always take his side. She had taken his side before, but she could take James' this time. If James had said that Sev had said something about his mum, she would believe him. Or maybe that's not how this was supposed to work… it was too late to take it back now though, he was already going red in the face, and Lily had her mouth pressed into a thin line and she was just upset and she wasn't sure why.

"So you believe everything Potter tells you now? Didn't we just establish that he's a git?"

"Yes, and he is, but why would he lie about you insulting his mother?"

"More importantly, why would I insult his mother?"

"He admitted that he started the fight," Lily fibbed, still unable to stop herself from talking. "But said that he hexed you first because you insulted his mum."

"He wants to turn you against me, Lily." Severus sighed, seeming both exasperated and annoyed. "Of course he's going to tell you that." And maybe it was because it rung true to what James had said earlier (_'He doesn't deserve it.') _or maybe it was because she did always take Sev's side, but she found that she was believing him now.

"Maybe." She said quietly, not sure how she felt about this, or what she was going to do about it. "It's just-"

"I swear it, Lils." Sev said. "I didn't do anything to him before he hexed me."

"Alright." She sighed, and then before she could think of anything more to say on the matter, "Let's just not talk about it anymore."

oOoOo

Sirius wasn't all that happy with the way the school year had started out.

Firstly, Remus had been trying to distract them away from studying about becoming animagi, with seemingly more entertaining activities. They had almost completed their map of the school now, at least, they had drawn out the layout of the school and put in as many of the secret passages as they had found. They hadn't worked out how to track people on the map yet, but Remus kept telling them that he was getting awfully close to working it out. And while finishing the map was all well and good, Sirius didn't find it all that interesting a commodity when he and James had to help Remus walk down to the hospital wing after class just this morning.

Secondly, James was acting like a twat. Ever since he and Lily had become friends, he had been acting like a goodie two shoes. Well, in Sirius's eyes he was acting like a goodie two shoes. He wouldn't pull pranks in class, he wouldn't sneak down to the kitchens for a late night snack (as often anyhow, and again, in Sirius's eyes,) he was turning all his homework in on time and raising his hand in class to answer the professor's questions. He didn't want to pull too many pranks (they hadn't pulled one prank since coming to Hogwarts) and it was all Lily's fault. James didn't want to upset her, so he was behaving and it was driving Sirius round the twist.

Thirdly, Regulus was a git.

He would try to do something about the first one, the third one was a lost cause and he had just come up with a brilliant idea to fix the second problem.

Sirius and James were walking down the corridor, scouting it one last time to look for any secret passages that they may have missed, any hidden rooms, staircases, re-counting the suits of armor to make sure that the number they had was correct, and other important things of the like. They had just confirmed that the number of portraits in the charms corridor was one off when Rabastan Lestrange and Wane Mulciber came walking around the corner.

And Sirius swore that he couldn't have planned this anymore perfect.

Let us take a moment for a bit of background information first:

It had been almost two weeks since Rita Skeeter had written the article in which she had bashed James' mum, calling to question her motives for having a handful of Death Eaters arrested. Since then, she had gone on to write a few more articles about the Head of the D.M.L.E, the latest of which discussing how her age might be getting in the way of her being an effective boss. So, James was already on edge and Rabastan and Wane's ammunition was there for the taking.

"Oh, Potter!" Rabastan said, grinning when his eyes fell upon the younger boy. "Just the person I wanted to see."

"Really?" James asked, tucking the parchment that they had been using to tally things up into his robe and making sure that his invisibility cloak wasn't hanging out either. "And why's that?" Sirius could tell that he was trying to sound bored, but he could detect a note of bitterness.

"Yes. Wane and I were just arguing about something and I think you can settle it for us."

James crossed his arms and threw a look over at Sirius which quite plainly read, 'This should be good.'

"Wane here disagrees with me, but I think that you're actually adopted."

"Adopted?" James laughed. "And what makes you think that?"

"Well," Rabastan set his stance for the big blow. "On account your parents being so old."

Sirius was momentarily disappointed when all James did was laugh again and cross his arms over his chest. "I'd rather have old parents than parents in prison, Rabastan."

Rabastan's smirk turned into a scowl and his wand was out before either of the boys could blink. "My father is _not_ going to prison." He spat out, taking a forceful step forward.

"You're thicker than I thought if you think my mum's going to rest until he does. No matter how many times the Prophet says she needs to."

"You're mum's going to need to start watching her back if she's going to mess with people like my dad. He's in a whole different league." Rabastan chuckled. "You have no idea."

"Bas," Wane said in a warning tone, putting a hand on Rabastan shoulder.

"You think the Death Eaters are going to amount to anything?" Sirius asked. "It's just a group of sorry old Pure Blood elitists who can't let go of the old ways."

"They don't have to."

"Rabastan," Wane said a bit louder. "We're not supposed to talk about this."

"Shut the hell up." Rabastan said.

"You two going to keep whispering, or-"

"Just wait." Wane said, a sliver or Rabastan's arrogance finding its way to his face. "You'll see."

"And until then," Rabastan pulled his wand back and before Sirius had time to pull out his own, he was flying across the corridor with James. They were both back on their feet in record time, wands flying out of their pockets and curses already leaving their lips.

Spells went flying back and forth, lighting up the dim corridor and striking the boys in turn. Sirius had fallen to the floor courtesy of a Knock back hex and Wan was trying to get his hair to stop growing when Filch walked around the corner with Mrs. Norris in his arms and a sly grin on his face.

"What have we here?" He asked, not bothering to try and hide his excitement at having caught four students out of bed after lights out, engaging in a duel. "A group of rule breakers it seems." Sirius sighed and put his wand away, seeing James clenching his jaw together in attempt to get his temper under control.

"You caught us." Sirius shrugged, putting his hands up in mock surrender. He was in a pretty pleasant mood on account of his plan going exactly how he had wanted it to. "We were fighting and sneaking around." James turned his head to give him a look. "There's no point in denying it." He answered, to which James shrugged.

"Follow me. We shall see what your heads of house have to say about this."

McGonagall ended up giving them a month of weekend detentions; one for sneaking out after lights out, two for fighting with the Slytherins and one more for allowing Filch to wake her up at such a late hour for a problem that he could have handled himself.

It wasn't until the next morning at breakfast however that Sirius got to follow through with part two of his plan. He and James slid onto the bench across from Peter who was going on about how he was going to be the only one to visit Remus tonight and generally making both of the boys feel completely awful about having detention that night when Lily sat down opposite of James and sighed.

"I've decided that I don't care either way. I want to be friends with both of you and that's that." She said, leaning across Peter to nab a piece of toast. "If either of you have a problem with that-"

"I've never done or said anything that should make you think I had a problem with you being friends with him."

"Yes you have, but that's not the point." Lily said, buttering her toast with a bit more force than was necessary. Crumbs went flying in all directions and Peter swiped some of them off his shoulder while sharing a look with Sirius. "Just leave one another alone and I don't care what else happens, okay?" She peeked up at him, still working on her toast.

"You're not going to apologize for trying to blame everything on me?"

"No."

"Fine." James muttered. "But I'm not apologizing either."

"Fine."

"Well now that that's settled," Sirius said, raising his brow. "Maybe we can get back to what we were talking about before we were interrupted."

"Sorry," Lily said, finally setting the bread knife down and taking a bite of her mutilated toast. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Of course not." Sirius smiled. He turned to Peter, "It's not our fault we've got detention tonight-"

"You have detention tonight?" Lily asked, causing James kick Sirius under the table, which Sirius pretended not to notice. Sirius smiled again and Lily bowed her head. "I sort of meant to interrupt that time. Why do you have detention?"

"Because we were attacked by more Slytherins." Sirius took a deep breath and let it out dramatically. "They really seem to have it out for us as of late, no?" He asked James.

"It was a slight altercation." He said to Lily, trying to put out the fire that Sirius was stoking. "Rabastan and Wane are idiots with twitchy arms, that's all."

"That's all?" Lily laughed. "Unbelievable." She stood up from the table.

"I thought you said you didn't care about anything as long as Snape wasn't involved." James said, also standing up.

"Whatever, James." Lily turned around to look at him. "Were they insulting your mum too? Did they throw the first hex too? Was it entirely their fault?" She started to walk along between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. James followed from the opposite side of the table.

"No." James said. Causing Lily to stop in her storming off. "I goaded Rabastan into throwing the first hex because I knew he would and I wanted to fight him. And in case you haven't been reading the Prophet, everyone seems to be attacking my mum lately, so I don't know why that would surprise you. I don't always do the right thing, but I don't lie about it afterwards." And then James stalked away, leaving a slightly stunned Lily standing in the middle of the Great Hall with too many eyes on her. She snapped out of her state and looked around the room before clearing her throat and rushing out of the room as well.

Sirius tried not to smirk, but he hadn't planned for the public humiliation. That was just an added bonus.

oOoOo

Mary had spent most of her summer alone. Her brother had been off working somewhere in Chad and her father had all but moved into his office in the Auror department so she was left to own devices.

Quidditch had been one of the few activities she hadn't gotten bored with in her exile. She had taken to waking up early every morning, before her father even, going for a run around the pond and through the woods in their backyard and then joining her father for a hasty breakfast before he rushed off to work. Then she would go back outside and work on building up her upper body strength and perfecting her aim. When the sun got too high in the sky she would go back inside and take a bath, listen to a few records, check the paper for any news, political or Quidditch related, and then go back outside again for another round of solo Quidditch.

Aside from becoming a solid chaser, Mary had also been in contact with her mum.

Anyone who knew Mary at all, knew that she and her mother did not get along all that well. Mary thought that her mother was a bit on the dim side and narcissistic, caring only for outwards appearances, money and social status. She was a pretty woman, with shoulder length chestnut colored hair, bright blue eyes and pouty lips. She enjoyed the fact that her daughter was starting to look more and more like her, and ignored the fact that Mary didn't seem to care one way or the other. She would get her dress clothes and makeup as gifts when Mary had specifically asked for Quidditch tickets or records, she would take her to tea shops and salons even though Mary had told her dozens of times that she really would prefer to do just about anything else.

And that was their relationship. All push and shove, no middle ground and a lot of frustration.

And then Mary's mum had owled her asking if she would mind taking her stepbrother to an Arrows game, sending not only tickets, but jersey's as well. Mary's father hadn't been able to go and Mary didn't think it was worth asking Lily, Savanna or Carlee for such a low profile game, but she had been disappointed that she wouldn't be attending so she agreed and found her mum much more agreeable after this. It was the first of a dozen games she would take her stepbrother to over the following two months and much to her surprise, her mum came along to some.

Mary had told her mum that she was planning on trying out for the house team when she got back up to school, and she had seemed excited for her, which Mary found strange, but in a good way. And now, here she was, standing on the Quidditch pitch with her mum's letter of encouragement stuffed into her robe pocket and her broomstick held tightly in her hand.

She had been extremely nervous to try out because she was not the only one trying out for the one available chaser position, Valerie Pinfield was as well, and she had been reserve chaser last year, she had trained with the team and they were all familiar with her already.

Though, Mary doubted that Valerie had practiced as much as she had over the summer. And she was nearly positive that she had outperformed the sixth year.

Gwen Jones, the new Captain of the Gryffindor team who had played keeper for the last five years, walked up and down the line of hopefuls, clipboard in hand and her lips pressed into a hard line. She had the kind of hair that reminded Mary of a dandelion and it bounced when she walked. "I saw a lot of potential out there today." She said, scanning everyone's face. Mary tried not to look too eager when her eyes stopped on her face. "A lot of potential." She continued pacing back and forth. "Unfortunately, we only have one spot available for chaser. The person I chose showed me that they know how to be a team player and handle the Quaffle, and those are really my only requirements." Mary felt her heart pounding in her chest and hoped that it would wait to burst after Gwen made the announcement. "I want to get scouted this year, I want to play for the Harpies and MacDonald," She stopped right in front of Mary. "I think you're my best bet." Mary felt her eyes go wide and her face split into a huge grin. "Pinfield and Robson, you'll come on as reserves, the rest of you, better luck next year."

Mary saw everyone around her start moving, packing up and heading back towards the castle, but as far as she was concerned, her feet had sunk into the pitch and she was incapable of moving them.

She had done it. She had made the team.

And she couldn't wait to tell her mum.

oOoOo

Carlee and Dennis had been meeting every day, as per McGonagall's request, though they had finished their project Tuesday, and were meeting now, Thursday, simply because they wanted to. Wednesday, Carlee was able to use the excuse that they should go over their paper with a fine tooth comb to make sure that it was perfect and said everything that they wanted it to, but today… she didn't have an excuse. She had just asked him if he wanted to meet up and he had agreed.

Dennis had arrived before Carlee, as he usually did, and already had all of his Charms notes spread across his half of the table (he was always careful to make sure his things stayed on his side of the table,) and some blue ink was smeared across his left hand and his chin. Carlee grinned as she sat down next to him.

"You've got ink on your face again." She said, tapping her own chin to indicate where it was.

"Well," He sighed, dropping his quill to the table and sighing. "I don't care anymore. I've given up on keeping the ink off my face."

"That's cool. Start a trend."

"If the ink wants to be on my face, then who am I to stop it. Maybe the ink tried really hard to get onto my chin and I would be a monster for wiping it off."

"I feel like the ink is now being used as a metaphor for something else."

"I got an 'A' on my last Charms essay." He dropped his head to the table in defeat, causing Carlee to laugh at him.

"Oh, you poor soul." She said. "Whatever are you going to do?"

"Look," He snapped, picking his head up and sticking her with a look. "I know that an 'A' isn't a horrible grade and that getting one isn't the end of the world-"

"Well that's good."

"But I want to do well. 'O' well. And Charms is a stupid subject and I don't understand it."

"Let's just all take a deep breath and ask ourselves, 'who do we know that is currently getting an 'O' in Charms?'" She tapped her chin with her pointer finger and pretended that she was deep in thought while Dennis rolled his eyes.

"Will you help me then?" He sighed.

"How could I say no to that?" Carlee laughed. She pulled her Charms notes and essay out of her bag and then pulled his essay towards her, so she could read over it and see what he needed help with.

"Someone is watching us." Dennis said suddenly, when Carlee was about two thirds of the way done with his essay.

"What?" Carlee looked up and Dennis nodded towards the end of the Divination isle. A girls with dark hair quickly disappeared behind the shelf.

Carlee sighed and looked down at the table. She hadn't talked to her sister Jane all summer, nor had she seen her since returning to school. She didn't know if it was guilt or annoyance that kept her from following after her sister, but it was most likely a combination of the two.

"Are you alright?"

"What? Oh, I'm fine." Carlee shook off the strange encounter and went back to Dennis' essay.

oOoOo

Savanna House was happy.

It was as simple as that. When her friends asked her how she felt about her dad suddenly appearing in her life over the summer after six years and drowning his daughters with lavish gifts, and trips, she told them that she was happy.

Of course, it had been a shock to come downstairs for breakfast about a week after returning from school to find her father, who had become something of a stranger, sitting at the dining room table with the Daily Prophet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He had sat her down and talked to her about why he had left, and why he had returned. After straightening out that whole mess, Savanna felt comfortable saying that she was happy.

It was a lie of course, but one that she was committed to.

Even though she no longer had to stress about her little sisters terrorizing their mother with magic, or how she and her mum were going to afford to get all of them through Hogwarts, and all of the other issues that she stressed about last year, she didn't like that he had come back. She felt like he was intruding on the slightly dysfunctional little world that they had built after he had left. She didn't feel that it was right that he got to turn their world upside down _twice_.

It was complicated though. Because, while she was being sullen at dinner that same day that he had arrived, she looked around the table and she saw her mother smiling- no, beaming, and she couldn't remember the last time she had seen her mother like that, completely stress free and enjoying herself. She looked at Violet and Hazel, and they too seemed ecstatic, no longer feeling the need to pull at one another's hair or throw their food across the table. And so that left Gisele, who at age twelve, was torn between wanting to forgive the man who had been around when she was a child, and wanting to hate the man that had left.

It wasn't like that for Savanna. She had happy memories of her father from when she was little, and she remembered the day he left as being one of the worst days of her life, but those memories played no role in her current disdain for him. She didn't like him now because he had been sitting at the dinner table when she first saw him, acting as though he owned it, not a care in the world. He had smiled at her when he saw her standing in the doorway, called her 'Savvy' and hugged her. He had expected her to be happy to see him, but she wasn't. He was a stranger and she wanted him to leave.

She wasn't lying for the sake of lying now, because Savanna typically hated lying. Gisele had been more conflicted than Savanna, her world wasn't quite as black and white as her older sisters and Savanna had wanted to make things easier for her. So she told Gisele that if their mother could forgive him then she didn't see why they couldn't, and Gisele had accepted that, along with all the gifts that her dad had bought and the trips that he sent them on.

Savanna thought she might be able to fool herself into believing all the lies she was telling if she did so often enough, because she _wanted_ to be as happy as everyone else in her family. This is why she talked about going to Paris, the gold earrings, and her new owl, but the more she talked, the more angry she got and all of this is what led to Arianna walking in on Savanna flushing her earrings down the toilet in the dormitory bathroom.

The earrings had just left her hand when Arianna walked in, eyes wide and brows raised.

"What are you doing?" She asked in a hushed tone, taking a few more steps into the room.

"I don't want them anymore." Savanna sighed, her shoulders slouched over and her mouth turned into a frown. "I don't want any of it anymore."

"Fy arglwydd." Arianna muttered, taking out her wand and summoning the earrings from the toilet. She sent them over to the sink and turned on the faucet. "The girls and I assumed that you were acting, for some reason, but flushing _gold_ down the drain is inexcusable."

"Well I-" She looked down at her feet and sighed. "I know."

"Why were you doing it?" Arianna asked.

"I hate him." Savanna whispered. Her voice was raw and her eyes were stinging. She cleared her throat and dug her nails into her palm. The look on Arianna's face was indecipherable between the quick glances that Savanna was casting at her. She had her lips pressed together in a thin line and her dark brown eyes were looking on at her steadily.

"That's okay." She finally said, and even though this was a secret that she had been so intent on keeping from Arianna, and even though she was still going to keep acting in front of her family, and even though she was disappointed that she hadn't been able to fool herself, hearing Arianna say that was just so goddamn liberating. She took a deep shaky breath, feeling better than she had since returning to school, and nodded her head, still trying to hold back the tears. "Why don't we dispose of the earrings in a more extravagant fashion?"

"What do you mean?"

"I think the lake would be a good place to get rid of them. Plus, the merfolk will eventually find them and they won't go to waste."

And that's how Savanna ended up standing at the edge of the black lake in the middle of the night with her fist clenched tightly around two small pieces of cold metal.

She pulled her arm back, imagining his smiling face, at _her_ dining room table, before whipping her arm forward and letting the earrings fly from her grip. He had no right to come back into their lives, to try and _buy_ his way back into their lives. He wasn't allowed to do that. He wasn't allowed to make her feel the way she was feeling.

And while she knew that this didn't fix everything, that things were still going to be hard and difficult, she felt a bit lighter and it made her smile.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Alright, you know the gig by now. I'd love a review, because they're awesome and so are you so... yeah. <strong>


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